[1]With all of the hype I have heard lately about FastStone Capture[2], I thought it would be a good idea to talk about another great program from FastStone – FastStone Image Viewer.

What is it and what does it do

FastStone Image Viewer is a freeware program from FastStone that is an image browser, converter, and editor that supports all major graphic formats including BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO, TGA, and camera raw files. Think of it as a replacement for Windows Photo Viewer with the added benefits of converting and editing.

Publisher’s Description

FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, retouching and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touches the four edges of the screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more. It supports all major graphic formats (BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, PSD, EPS, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA) and popular digital camera RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF, ARW, SR2, RW2 and DNG).

Acquire images from scanner. Support batch scanning to PDF, TIFF, JPEG and PNG

Versatile screen capture capability

Powerful Save As interface to compare image quality and control generated file size

Run favorite programs with one keystroke from within Image Viewer

Offer portable version of the program which can be run from a removable storage device

Configurable mouse wheel support

Support multiple program skins

Support dual-monitor configurations

And much more…

Getting Started with FastStone Image Viewer

[5]I’ve been using FastStone Image Viewer for quite some time now and I really enjoy its features and easy-to-use interface. When you first open Image Viewer, it loads a screen with a navigational panel on the left, and the directory/folder on the right in thumbnail style. On this screen you have a Control Bar, Toolbar, Menu Bar, Folder Tree Window, Preview Window, Information Bars, and Thumbnail Window. To find images, simply navigate to the desired directory via the Folder Tree Window and click on the directory to see all the images/photos in the folder in the Thumbnail Window. Directories or folders can be expanded by clicking the + sign next to them.

Once you open the desired directory or folder, you can select an image from the Thumbnail Window to browse, convert, or edit. Simply right-clicking on the picture from Thumbnail Window allows you to perform a multitude of different functions. Some of these functions include:

[6]Start a slide show

Edit

Colors

Effects

Email

Print

Image properties

And much more

How to Manage and Work With Digital Images

Viewing Images

In addition to the Thumbnail View, you can view your images in:

Full Screen View

Windowed View

Compare Selected Images View

Several variations of these views

There are advantages to each of these views and it is easy to switch between them. To select a particular view, simply go to settings and then click on the viewer tab to set your preferences:

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Tag Images

You can tag and untag images but note tagging is available only in the following views:

Thumbnails View

Window View

Full Screen View

Comparator Normal Views

Comparator Full Screen View

To tag an image, select the image, right-click it, and select the Tag/Untag option from the right-click menu:

Managing an image is as easy as selecting it and then right-clicking it to bring up the menu commands:

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Crop Images

FastStone Image Viewer allows users to crop images. To crop an image:

Click on the image to select it.

Click on the Crop Board icon from the Options Bar and the Crop Board will appear:

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Set the Paper Ratio to what you desire and the cropping marquee will automatically adjust so that it has the correct aspect ratio for a size of paper you selected.

If you want to change the size of the crop, use the corner handles of the cropping marquee to click and drag to change the size – the correct aspect ratio will be maintained.

If you want to move the cropping marquee to another part of the image, just click inside of the marquee and drag it to a new location.

Edit Images

With the editing function, you can resize/resample, rotate/flip, crop, sharpen/blur, adjust lighting/colors/curves/levels, plus much more.

To edit image…

Open the image in the Full Screen View

Point to the left side of the screen and a popup menu will appear

In the Adjustments section[11], click on the type of adjustment that you want and a dialog box will appear

Click on the Reset button to reset the adjustment to no adjustments

Make any adjustments that you want to make

Click on the Hold Down To See Original Image button to see the effect of the adjustments

When you are satisfied with your adjustments, click on the OK button and the Full Screen View will show the effects of the adjustments

Make any additional editing adjustments that you want to make following the same steps including clicking on the OK button when you are finish with each set of adjustments

Save the changes

Double click on the image to return to the browser – if you saved the image to a different folder and/or changed the image name, the thumbnail for the original image will not have been affected by the changes

The Draw Board

The Draw Board allows you to “draw” on images — you can add text, graphics, waters, etc.

To use the Draw Board on an image:

Click on a thumbnail in the Thumbnail Window to select it

Open the Draw Board via either Edit (from the menu bar at the top) -> Draw Board or pressing D on your keyboard

Once the Draw Board is open, use the button bar on the left to access its features:

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Other Functionality

There are many additional functions and tasks you can perform with FastStone Image Viewer that I have not discussed above, such as:

Conclusion and Download Links

FastStone Image viewer is an excellent program for working with images. I find it to be feature filled and extremely easy to use. Its features range from simple to advanced, allow you to do practically anything you need to with your images; and best of all its free for home and educational users (business users must purchase license) and has a portable version, for those that don’t like installers. While I have not used every single imaging software out there, I’ve found that FastStone Image Viewer has been able to do everything I have needed to do with images. I’m sure if you give it a shot it will please you just the same.